With their long noses, funny spectacles, adorable pullovers and all round cutesiness, the Llloyds bank promotional characters now face one last journey, with a devastatingly tragic destination. TV viewers will see the loveable characters herded towards the station from where they used to commute in their sweet-looking trains. There they will pause, aghast, at some less-than loveable cattle trucks, before being forced aboard. The symbolism is inescapable. This is a bank-regime in trouble, and looking for scapegoats.

In doomladen scenes reminiscent of another, more brutal era of European crisis, the characters of all ages and backgrounds troop wearily inside the trucks, under the direction of sternly-clad bank officials. The beautiful carefully-chosen colour schemes fade to black and white, while Mahler’s deathly symphony number five works out its tragic last moments. The final shot is of a slowly de-colouring adorable butterfly, drooping, then dropping from its formerly lovely leaf, as the long train winds its way into an ever-bleaker landscape.

Llyods bank marketing team deny the commercials are in poor taste, though some of the characters involved who have seen the script say they feel tricked. “I joined the commercials team because my face fitted. My nose especially. And I had a rather big head and tiny body. So does my wife and family. At first the treatment by Lloyds was OK. Then there was trouble with my overdraft. Now, this. It’s unbearable.”

Another said “We have not been told where we are going. We are allowed to take one cute-looking duffel bag. Some say we are being forced into a bigger, socialist style bank far far away. Others are forced to stay here in an ever deteriorating Lloyds cutesy-land, under the rule of unscrupulous "bankers". Families and friends are being separated. And officials cannot say when or how we will meet our fate."

Julie Waters is heading the operation mounted on the Lloyds trademark jet black thoroughbred horse. She also provides the voice over for the "journey" commercials. This last one is privately dubbed “the Final Solution”. Ms Walters told the media Lloyds has no choice in the matter. The characters are now "unwanted on journey", they must bow to market forces and she is only following bankers’ orders.